


An Antique Land

by freosan



Series: Nothing Beside Remains [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Desert Bluffs fluff, M/M, anywhere else we just call it gore but you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-24 20:22:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1615895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/pseuds/freosan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets and stories from before Desert Bluffs came to Night Vale.</p><p>Fluffy and sweet, if extremely Bluffsian, scenes from a DB!Carlos/Kevin relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Santino looks down at the still form of his senior researcher. She is very still, and her blood is very red, and spreading slowly across the formerly shining clean white tile floor.

She'll like the look of it. She's always been viciously excited whenever they get to deal with something that bleeds. Maybe he'll leave it for her to clean up.

"Santino!"

The cry of his name is anguished, terrified. Santino turns. It seems harder than it should be to make his legs work.

Kevin stands in the doorway. "I came as soon as I could," he says. His knuckles are white where he grips the doorframe; his face is missing its usual professional smile. "I heard during the broadcast, but I couldn't leave… it's over?"

"I think I took care of it, yeah." Santino feels a little woozy. Some unexpected blood loss, he thinks.

"Oh. ...You don't need my help at all?" Kevin asks.

"A scientist is self-reliant. That's the first thing a scientist is," Santino says. He's definitely dizzy. There's a ringing in his ears.

"That's wonderful!" Kevin says, taking a step towards him. "And very forward-thinking, but I wonder if scientists can't make an exception sometimes?"

Kevin's eyes are fixed on Santino's stomach, and Santino thinks this is weird enough that he almost makes a remark about it, but then he looks down himself.

He'd throw up if he still had control over his abdominal muscles, but he doesn't. He doesn't actually appear to have abdominal muscles at all anymore. At least not contiguous ones. Not ones that are capable of holding in his very important internal organs. Important internal organs that seem to be hanging out of his body, warm and glistening and red against his white lab coat.

He can't feel anything.

"Fuck," he says, and promptly falls over in a pool of his own blood.

* * *

He wakes up some time later, in a warm and fluffy bed that he does not recognize, looking at a cheery pale yellow ceiling that he also does not recognize. He tries to sit up and a stabbing pain in his stomach reminds him that that's a horrible idea.

"Are you awake?" a pleasant voice asks from the side of the bed. Santino thinks it's the radio at first, about to start another one of those strange philosophical rants. But no; warm fingers touch his shoulder, and he turns his head slightly to see Kevin hovering over him.

Kevin smiles when Santino makes eye contact. "You are! I'm so glad," he says. "How do you feel?"

Santino twitches his fingers and toes, stretches his legs and arms slightly. "I'm… in one piece, I think."

"That is significantly better than the alternative." Kevin's smile extends farther, showing a few too many sharp teeth. "Do you feel pain?"

"Yes," Santino says, and then thinks about the wording of that question. "Wait, what…"

"Here." Kevin holds out his hands; one has a glass of water, and the other has two pills. Santino gets the glass first and his hand shakes so hard he splashes water on himself.

Kevin just frowns, wipes Santino's face with a corner of the blanket, and helps Santino swallow the pills, holding the cup to his lips so he can drink.

"You'll be fine," he says. "This will help. You did well to survive your first attempted demotion."

"My what now?" Santino so rarely has any idea what Kevin is talking about, but in this case he thinks he should, and look, Kevin is right here, able to be asked things.

Kevin tilts his head. "Wasn't Kelly after your job?"

"Is that what that was?" Santino asks.

"I assumed so! You have a very important position in the community. It's only natural that you'd be the victim of envy from those around you." Kevin touches the side of Santino's face, his fingertips barely brushing against Santino's skin. Then he pulls his hand away looking flustered.

"It's such a shame you couldn't kill her cleanly, but I think you did very well."

Santino tries to sit up, a reflex born of shock. As per usual around here his reflexes don’t serve him well; he grunts in pain and Kevin reaches his hand out again, eyes wide. Santino brushes him off.

"She's dead?"

"Of course she's dead! You would be, if she wasn't." Kevin shakes his head. "You managed it just in time."

Santino lets himself fall back to the pillows. He does feel a little better. Whatever Kevin gave him must be fast-acting.

"So I'm still in charge of the scientists," he says. At least he accomplished that much. Kelly is - was - StrexCorp through and through. His team doesn’t need them calling the shots.

"Of course. And I must say I think you're the best person for the job." Kevin's smile is as brilliant as it is blood-stained.

"Thanks," Santino mumbles.

"No one will challenge you for a week or two while you recover. You can relax for a bit," Kevin says. "Maybe go on a date!"

Santino laughs and shakes his head, settling in. The pillows are very comfortable. "Who's going to ask a guy with half his organs hanging out on a date?"

"You might be surprised," Kevin murmurs.

Santino is out of it again, his eyes closing against his will, but he's positive that he feels warm, cracked lips press against his forehead as he falls asleep.

 


	2. First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dating in Desert Bluffs is not quite like dating anywhere else, but Santino is a scientist. He's confident he can figure it out.

Santino asks Kevin out the next Saturday.

He's pretty sure it's the first time he's surprised Kevin since he got here.

Strex employees get one half-Saturday off a month. It's not on any kind of recurring schedule; Kevin always announces it on the radio, voice brimming with sugary sweetness, chattering about how wonderful StrexCorp is for caring so much about their employees' needs and personal lives. Santino hates hearing it, but it does help him figure out when he'll actually be able to see Kevin.

(Santino isn't sure how Kevin got the time off to stay with him for a full day, after he was injured, but he suspects major sacrifices were involved. He didn't ask about the nature of the sacrifices and Kevin hasn't brought it up.)

Santino, as an independent contractor, has a little more leeway in his schedule; as soon as he hears that Kevin will be taking this Saturday afternoon off, he wraps up his experiments and hops on the bus. If he times it just right, he'll be able to catch Kevin on his way out of the radio station. (Santino hasn't been in the radio station yet. The way Kevin looks when he leaves work, he really doesn't feel the need.)

He doesn't time it quite right. Kevin is already waiting at the bus stop when Santino arrives, and he climbs up the steps before Santino can get off and grab him. Santino waits until Kevin passes him on his way to his seat, catches his hand, and drags him right back off again. Kevin makes the kind of noise Santino's been daydreaming about as he stumbles down the steps.

"Hey, Kevin," Santino says, as soon as they're back on solid ground.

Kevin stares at him, his eyes sharp behind his polite smile. He looks like he thinks Santino might attack him, which, based on Kevin's entire lived experience up to now, is probably a fair assumption to make.

"Since you're off, I thought we could get lunch or something?" Santino offers.

Kevin gasps. His smile drops.

It's possible Santino has made a huge mistake. He lets go of Kevin's hand, and steps back a little, wiping the leftover blood on his lab coat. "Sorry," he says. "That was probably the wrong way to ask."

"Oh no, I'm sorry too. " The corners of Kevin's mouth have turned up again, but he looks uncertain about the whole business. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"You don't. Uh, didn't. Don't worry about it." Santino puts his hands in his pockets, where they won't do anything stupid like grab Kevin and try to break his skin open with their nails.

They stand in silence for a moment, and then Kevin says, "The next bus comes in twenty minutes."

Santino considers apologizing again, but it seems likely to make this conversation more awkward, not less. Instead he says, "Let me buy you lunch? I owe you a thank you."

Kevin regards him steadily for a long moment. Then his third eye blinks twice, and he beams. "That would be lovely, Santino."

It takes Santino a second to catch up with Kevin's sudden change in attitude. But he can't resist returning that smile.

"Great," he says. "Where's your favorite place in town?" 

* * *

Kevin, after some prodding, takes him to a little diner on the outskirts of downtown. It serves the most typically _American_ American food Santino has ever seen, in an environment of cheery yellows and oranges and shining chrome, set off by a homey, retro spattering of blood and viscera over the pastry display. It is exactly Kevin's kind of place.

Santino takes tiny samples of his burger, fries, and milkshake before he eats them, but it's mostly for curiosity's sake. It's not like he hasn't already consumed more uppers and mood enhancers than any one person should reasonably encounter in their lifetime. He just wants to know what's getting into him.

Besides, unless the food is a lot more enhanced than usual, he doesn't think this warm glow he's got going on is down to the drugs.

He tries to keep the conversation on Kevin, how Kevin's doing, what Kevin's up to lately, but Kevin keeps turning the questions back around on him with a reporter's ease. No matter what Santino talks about, Kevin listens, smiling gently and encouraging him on even when he's just rambling about his most recent failed (exploded) experiment.

It's… nice. It's really nice, being able to talk to Kevin. Santino's been listening to him for so long, reacting to the day-to-day of news and the words of his producer and his interns, that he's built up a strong model of what it would be like if Kevin were to react to his own words. Observational data is chipping away at the edges of his hypotheses. For example, he always knew Kevin would be attentive; he didn't expect just how attentive. His model did not take into account that Kevin would stare deeply into his eyes or miss getting his mouth on his straw because he's too busy looking at Santino.

And since radio is not a visual or tactile medium, he never knew how much touching there would be. Every time Santino leaves his hand on the table, Kevin's hand rests next to it, just barely brushing his little finger. When Santino's leg bumps into Kevin's under the table, Kevin jumps a little; Santino moves out of the way, but after a minute or two, he feels Kevin's ankle rub up against his own, almost shyly.

He leaves his foot where it is. Kevin doesn't move, either. The warmth Santino feels from the place where his bare skin touches Kevin's is probably not an honest exchange of atomic energy.

By the time they've ordered dessert, Kevin's hand is lying palm-up on the table, and Santino's hand rests on it, his fingers gently tracing the small yellow triangle tattooed on Kevin's wrist. They’re not really talking anymore; a murmured word or two every now and then, “this was nice” or “glad you had fun”, but mostly they’re just… being. Santino has never felt so comfortable with someone so quickly. He's certainly never felt so comfortable with someone who has blood crusted under his nails, whose fingers are leaving coppery-red smears on his skin where they touch.

Dessert comes, borne by a skittish-looking waitress coated in blue-black, viscous liquid up to her elbows. She carefully doesn’t get any of it on their plates, which Santino thinks is kind of a shame. He would’ve liked a sample. She sets the pie and coffee down, glances at Kevin’s brilliant, shark-toothed grin, and runs off.

Kevin has the chocolate pie, and seemed pretty excited about ordering it, but he doesn’t pick up his fork when he has it in front of him. It takes Santino a few seconds to figure out what’s going on: he has Kevin’s right hand trapped under his left, and Kevin doesn’t want to move.

Kevin sees his eyes flicker towards their hands, gives him an apologetic smile, and starts to take his hand away. Santino grabs it.

Kevin’s smile turns a bit sharper, and his nails rest lightly on Santino’s wrist. “Santino, may I use that, please?”

“Do you need to?” Santino asks. He takes Kevin’s fork and picks up a bit of his pie. There is half a second where Kevin looks completely heartbroken. Then Santino holds the fork out for him, and he gets to see the lovely voice of Desert Bluffs lost for words.

Kevin blushes. Santino grins at him, lifting an eyebrow. It seems to take hours, though it’s really only seconds (as far as Santino can tell; time doesn’t work in Desert Bluffs), before Kevin comes to a decision and opens his mouth.

Santino was really teasing. Okay, eighty percent… sixty percent teasing. But when he feeds Kevin the pie, Kevin’s eyes close at the same time as his lips, and he lets out an orgasmic, if quiet, moan. Santino decides Kevin’s the one teasing. He shifts slightly in his seat and files the observation away for future reference.

Santino pulls the fork back, and Kevin licks his lips.

“Maybe I don’t,” he says. Santino blinks at him.

Kevin laughs and looks up at Santino through his lashes. “May I have another?”

Santino nearly drops the fork.

He’s not quite sure how he got to this point, but he ends up feeding Kevin the entire damn slice. Kevin seems to enjoy himself, after his initial reservations. By the time all the pie is gone, Kevin's smile is tender, and his nails have left half-moon impressions in Santino's wrist.

Santino releases his hand so they can drink their coffee. He's not shy about rubbing at the marks on his wrist. Kevin keeps smiling at him, so he keeps smiling at Kevin, taking in the curve of his lip, the way his hair glows like a halo in the afternoon sunlight through the window, the gentle shine of his obsidian-black eyes.

They know it’s time to leave when they both break out in laughter at the same time apropos of absolutely nothing. They keep grinning, like kids with a secret, while they determine that Santino has no StrexCorp scrip and so Kevin will be paying. That was not Santino’s intention.

“I’ll have to take you out again. Twice,” he tells Kevin. "No arguments."

“How can I argue with such authority?” Kevin shoots back with a grin. “I look forward to it.”

Kevin escorts Santino back to his apartment - well, they ride the bus together, and Santino’s apartment is before Kevin’s - and refuses Santino’s invitation to come up with him.

“I’m sorry. I have work to do,” he says. He sounds honestly regretful. That goes a fair way towards making Santino feel better.

“Maybe sometime we can do our weekend stuff together," he offers. Any excuse to see Kevin again, he thinks.

Kevin nods, a little stiffly. Santino thinks maybe he’s fucked up again. But when he steps closer to Kevin and puts a hand on his waist, Kevin looks up at him and doesn’t move away.

“I had a good time today." Santino pulls Kevin towards him. Kevin's body is warm against his, where their shoulders and chests and hips brush together; warmer than the ambient temperature can really account for. It makes Santino want to curl into him despite the desert heat. “I really would like to see you more.”

Kevin’s smile cracks a little. He hesitates before he answers. “I’d like that too,” he whispers.

Santino kisses him - just once, just gently. Kevin’s teeth are as sharp as they look, and they cut into the side of his tongue and the inside of his lip with only the gentlest of pressure. It’s Santino’s turn to lick his lips and smile as he pulls away.

“Soon, then,” he says.

Kevin nods. “Until next time, Santino.”

"Yeah," Santino says. "Until next time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally can't stop writing fluff about these DORKS. Thank you for the comments and kudos and especially the support for my Santino and Kevin!


	3. Sweetheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Santino wants to be closer to Kevin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is ART for this fic! The embedded image was done by the incomparable [goddess in green](http://goddess-in-green.tumblr.com/).

Kevin is pouting. It’s adorable. He sits on Santino’s carefully-prepared exam table with his arms folded across his bare chest and his lower lip trembling. His feet are bare, too, but he still wears his nice slacks; he came straight to Santino's lab from work. Santino doubts this is quite what Kevin expected when he got Santino's text this morning:  _I have a surprise for you_.

"Are you planning to do experiments on me again?" Kevin asks. "That was nice, but..."

But Kevin hadn't enjoyed being the subject of experimentation for as long as Santino had enjoyed working on him. Something about getting bored. Santino has made plans to avoid that happening again. "Not exactly. This is just for us," Santino reassures him. "No measurements, no notebooks. I promise."

Kevin nods. "But I can't touch you?"

"I'll be touching you enough for both of us," Santino promises. "And you can tell me to stop if you want. You won't want to, but if you do, I'll stop. We'll go home and watch TV or something."

"Okay..." Kevin still looks a bit forlorn. Santino wraps both hands around his throat and gives him a deep, sweet kiss, until Kevin relaxes and Santino can coax him into lying down on the table.

“I still want to touch you,” Kevin says.

Santino strokes his hair. “I know, baby, but you have to hold still. Give me your hand?"

Kevin lets Santino take his wrist and buckle a strong leather cuff around it. The cuff is riveted to the underside of the exam table. A second cuff goes around Kevin's upper arm, for reinforcement. Santino is taking no chances that Kevin will be able to tear himself free. This is a delicate operation, and he’ll hurt himself if he squirms.

Kevin doesn't argue about the other hand, or his legs, when Santino moves to the bottom of the table to pin him at ankle and thigh. When Santino lays a strap across his hips, he does arch his back, but a sharp jerk on the leather pins him to the table and puts an end to that. A final strap lays across his neck, not as tight as the others; just enough to keep him from lifting his head.

“There," Santino says, patting the hip strap - coincidentally letting his fingertips just brush Kevin's bare stomach. "Feel secure?"

Kevin's brows knit and he tugs and wriggles, testing each anchor point individually, then all at once. He barely moves an inch. Santino watches him fight and then give in, collapsing back to the table.

"Good?" he prompts.

"Yes, dearest."

Santino kisses him once more and then turns away to sort out the equipment. He has scalpel, clamps, thread and needle, and, last but not least, the bone saw, all neatly sterilized and laid out on a gauze pad on the stainless steel countertop.

He watches Kevin in the fisheye mirror mounted to the corner of the ceiling. Kevin won't look at mirrors at all, acts like there's a blind spot in his vision when he sees one, so Santino can spy on him this way without being caught. Kevin's fighting again, which makes Santino grin. He'd like to let him wear himself out, but he'll choke himself out at this rate, and then where would they be?

"Calm down," Santino says without turning around.

"I'm calm!" Kevin protests.

Santino laughs and clinks some of the scalpels, just to see Kevin twitch and try to lift his head again. "Sure you are."

Kevin whines. Santino lets him stew just a few seconds longer before he picks up a scalpel and makes his way back to the table.

Kevin turns his face away - he's pouting again - but Santino holds the blade just at the corner of his vision, letting the fluorescent lights shine off it. Kevin can't resist his curiosity very long. He looks back reluctantly, and his brows furrow when he sees the scalpel.

"That's your surprise, dearest?" Kevin asks. "You promised something exciting."

"Give me a couple minutes." Santino lays the blade on Kevin's left shoulder, just in the hollow below the clavicle. "Maybe you can guess what it is," he says. Kevin lifts his shoulder a bit. He doesn't have much room to move, but it's enough to press the blade in and raise a small drop of blood.

Santino pulls the blade away and traces his finger through it, smearing reddish-orange across Kevin's chest. "Can you try to be patient for me?"

Kevin frowns, but settles himself again in his straps; Santino rewards him by slipping his thumb in Kevin's mouth for him to nip at. He hardly feels Kevin's sharp teeth slice the pad.

"You okay?" he asks. 

Kevin sucks on his thumb, softening his mouth, and nods.

"Good, baby. I'm going to start now."

Kevin sighs when Santino pulls his hand away. Santino smiles at him and lays the blade down again, making a straight, sharp, deep cut just below the clavicle. Kevin groans and wiggles his fingers and toes; but his body stays perfectly still.

Santino draws the second cut out a little more, dragging the scalpel along a few inches and waiting for Kevin's reaction before he continues on. He wants to stab at him, stop teasing him, and make him scream instead of whine, but he holds steady. This line is as straight and clean as the first and crosses over it right above Kevin's sternum.

"Have you guessed yet?" Santino asks. He plays with the blood dripping down Kevin’s freckled shoulders, tracing his yellow tattoos over in red, while he waits for Kevin to answer him.

“You’re going to tease me to death?” Kevin pants.

“How could you possibly accuse me of such a thing?” Santino asks. He clicks his tongue and taps his fingers on the exposed, glistening muscle of Kevin’s left shoulder. “Let me give you a hint. I’m going to start here.” He drags his finger through the incision, and then over Kevin's sternum, leaving a line of blood to map out his next cut. “And go down this way, through all your protective layers, skin and muscle and bone…”

Kevin gasps when he catches on, his eyes wide and shining. “Oh, Santino.”

“I told you I would open you up, didn’t I? Crack your chest open and kiss your heart.”

Kevin strains against the straps, twisting towards Santino and grunting with the frustration when he can’t get any closer. “Santino, that is the most romantic, the sweetest, the dearest thing anyone has ever said to me. Only someone as perfect as you could have even thought of this.”

Santino smiles, though it’s a little crooked, and his vision is suspiciously blurry. “You deserve it,” he says. He bends over Kevin to kiss him. 

Kevin can’t reach up, as he usually would, and crush Santino to him, but he slips his tongue into Santino’s mouth and whimpers prettily when Santino bites it. Santino licks at his lips and runs his own tongue over Kevin’s sharp teeth, letting a few drops of his blood slip into Kevin’s mouth. He doesn’t need to see to make the next cut; he does it by feel, still leaning over Kevin, swallowing Kevin’s pleasured gasps as he drags the scalpel down Kevin’s sternum.

Kevin is beaming when Santino pulls back from him, all his sharp teeth on display. Santino’s blood glistens on his lips and a smear of his own blood mars his cheek, left there by Santino’s thumb.

That was sloppy of him. Santino leans down again and licks the blood off. There. Much better. Kevin’s heart rate has picked up, his breathing is shallow and rapid, his black eyes shine with delight. Santino can’t wait to be inside him.

“Are you ready?” he asks, picking up the bone saw from the table of instruments.

Kevin grins impossibly, painfully wide, and throws his head back, as far as he can. Perfect and perfectly vulnerable. “Yes.”

Santino flicks the switch, and the saw whirrs to life. It’s loud, but not loud enough to cover Kevin’s excited gasp when the saw first touches down. As it bites into his sternum, the pitch lowers. Kevin moans in the same frequency.

It takes longer than Santino wants it to, but he has to be careful; he has to be able to put Kevin back together, when he’s through with this. He’s glad he thought to tie him down. Even with the straps holding him firm Kevin can’t stop moving, wiggling and twisting and trying to urge Santino along. Flecks of blood and flesh spatter his face, and blood pours down his sides to pool on the table, and he heaves great sobbing breaths each time Santino pulls the saw away to cut the next segment of bone. Santino has rarely seen him so beautiful.

When it’s done, Santino sets the saw aside, and takes a moment to stroke the hair out of Kevin’s eyes and check in on his pulse. 

“How do you feel?” he asks. “Are you alright to keep going?”

Kevin takes a breath to answer, and the dissociated sections of his ribcage slip past each other with a creak. Instead of words, he gives Santino a dreamy smile and a nod. 

Santino kisses him quickly and climbs up onto the table. There’s just enough room for him to perch straddled over Kevin’s stomach, leaning down over him, with both hands on Kevin’s chest. Kevin watches him, adoring.

Santino carefully, slowly, slips his thumbs into the cut. Kevin’s blood is slippery over the sharp cut edges of his bone. Santino thinks of water over rocks in a stream, only it’s Kevin’s life that’s pouring over his hands, hot and thick. Kevin arches into his hands so that Santino’s thumbs push in, into his chest, inside him, and all but screams as his ribs creak apart.

Santino kisses his forehead, his eyes, his blood-stained lips. 

“Okay, Kevin, baby. I’m going to open you up now. Just keep breathing for me.”

Kevin nods and inhales from his belly. As Santino pulls his ribs apart, inch by careful, painful inch, his mouth drops open. He still tries to form words, but they die half-said, coming out as gasps instead. Santino grips the rough edges of his bone more tightly, pushes harder, the better to get inside him _now_. Bone cracks and snaps and muscle tears, and Santino sees each injury, each little violation, written in pain and pleasure across Kevin’s face.

It's sudden when it happens. One loud final snap of rib, Kevin's chest falls open, and Kevin’s heart is laid bare, nestled smooth and glistening between his heaving lungs. Santino stares for several moments, watching it pulse.

“You’re beautiful,” Santino says.

Kevin sighs and his heart stutters just once in its steady beat.

Santino reaches into his chest and wraps his fingers around Kevin’s heart, nudging Kevin’s lungs out of the way until he has the whole organ in his hand, thumping the drum-beat of Kevin’s life. Kevin only watches him, his eyes half-closed, the ghost of a smile at the corners of his open, panting mouth.

Santino bends down and kisses Kevin’s heart.

It’s hot under his lips, salty and sweet and coppery when he flicks his tongue out to taste it. He closes his eyes and stays bent over, for a moment. He can hear all the movements of Kevin’s body: blood rushing through his arteries, air moving in and out of his lungs. He’s never felt so close to another person; he didn’t even know he could. He’s part of Kevin, entwined with his flesh, inside his bones, coursing through his veins.

He pulls away reluctantly after a few more heartbeats. They’re getting slower now, and Kevin’s careful, steady breathing is getting weaker as his diaphragm protests the rough treatment. He lets Kevin’s heart slip from his fingers, slowly, giving it a last gentle squeeze before he settles it into place once again. 

Only when Kevin’s ribs are closed, his beautiful, perfect organs hidden inside his blood-streaked and cracked shell, does Santino look at Kevin’s face again. Kevin is ashen under the red, his eyes open wide and staring at nothing; when Santino leans over him and touches his cheek, he smiles.

“You’re perfect. Everything about you is perfect,” Santino whispers. “I know, now. I’ve seen.”

Kevin mouths his name. Santino fits his lips over Kevin’s, breathing air back into his lungs. Kevin’s first gasps barely count as breaths at all, but soon, whatever magic is in Desert Bluffs has its way with him, and he's inhaling and exhaling normally, though he winces every time his lungs fill.

Santino staples his sternum and then sews up the incision; delicate, painstaking work that he interrupts only to wipe sweat off Kevin’s forehead and kiss him to soothe him through the pain. Kevin doesn't show any reaction to individual stimulus. Santino figures he's taken too much for that at this point. But the tears and shaking keep coming while Santino puts him back together.

“You’ll probably scar," he mentions casually, while Kevin whimpers through another set of sutures. 

“It’s been so long since I’ve gotten a new one," Kevin says quietly. Then he takes a deep breath. "Do you think I will, really?"

“If it doesn’t, I’ll cut you again until it does.”

“Do you promise?”

“Anything for you, sweetheart.”

Kevin doesn't answer, but as Santino draws the thread through his flesh again, he sighs, and smiles. Santino kisses the last stitch as he ties it off. 

 

 


End file.
